beautiful losers + nike: make something.

Released earlier this year, “Beautiful Losers” is an inspiring and honest documentary about the nature of creativity and the lives of artists. It harnessed the pure joy that should spring forth from the act of creation. I was so totally inspired after seeing it that I thought my body might convert into light or just float away forever.

If you haven’t seen it yet or aren’t familiar with it, check out the trailer. You’ll be hooked:

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In the spirit of the documentary, “Beautiful Losers” teamed up with Nike to throw art workshops for youth in L.A. and New York. They’ve released short web vids showing us the energy and buzz that obviously filled the air as young people got to be inspired by working with some of the biggest artists in the world. Directed by Arlo Rosner for Blacklake Productions, who said:

“The inspirational element of the whole thing wasn’t just about the artists inspiring the kids to get out there and make things, but it was the kids inspiring the artists” says Barlow. “The appreciation was flowing pretty heavy in both directions.”
KAWS

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Aaron Rose

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Jesse Leyva

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You can check out all of the workshop vids here.

Via Creativity

anonymous: just douche it.

So this little puppy turned up on Adrants today. Apparently it’s about to appear in a yet unnamed international publication, and the equally anonymous tipster told them “We prefer to keep the publication anonymous for now but this will be going to print in the very near future and we expect it to provoke some discussion and probably some threats of legal action.”

Looks very Adbusters-ish to me, but who knows. I like Nike. I wear Nikes. So I’m not posting this to trash them. Because the only thing I like more than my right to enjoy and support a brand, no matter how ubiquitous it may be, is the right of anyone else to hate it enough to make fun of it.

UPDATE: Thanks to Jake for letting me know that Just Douche It did actually turn up as the back cover on the latest issue of Adbusters. Sweet.

nike + nieto: conversations from the inside.

Say what you will about Nike, they’ve got a ginormous advertising budget and use it well. Always hitting on new ways to foster upcoming directors, designers, and animators. They give them the cash and freedom to really blow it out the door. It might all be part of an evil corporate greed machine, but with animation this kick ass I don’t really care.

For Nike Women, Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam has gone to some heavy hitters and created five separate spots inspired by different female athletes. The best one by far, produced by Paranoid US and directed by Nieto (who directed the Visa spot “Anthem”, one of the most beautiful ads from the Beijing Olympics), is an organ-by-organ account of what goes on inside runner Nicola Sander’s mind and body when she’s running a race. The result is freakin’ brilliant and entertaining to boot.

I also really like another Paranoid US contribution to the project (again, about an athlete named Nicola…) but this time it’s triathlete Nicola Spirig, directed by Edouard Salier.

Via Motionographer

nike + oscar pistorius: bad listener.

To me, Oscar Pistorius is both a fascinating human story and a signal of things to come. Born without bones from the knees down, he’s overcome adversities that most of us can’t even fathom. Now he’s a fast enough runner that he’s on the brink of becoming the first Paralympic athlete to compete in the Olympics themselves. However, the opposition he faces is greater than just his lack of legs…

Check out my last post about Pistorius for the complete story on the controversy surrounding his journey. In the end, after wrangling with various international athletic federations and flying around the world for scientific tests, Pistorius was only finally allowed to try and make the South African Olympic team mere weeks before the preliminaries and he fell seconds short of making the team. His sights are now set on London 2012. I’ll say it right here, right now: in 2012, Oscar Pistorius will become the first “differently abled” athlete to compete in the Olympic Games and make history before all of our eyes.

For now, Pistorius remains an inspiration; a shining beacon of just what the human body and mind is capable of in a competitive world designed to keep people inside their neat little boxes. Pistorius has appeared in Nike South Africa ads before, but in this new spot, “Bad Listener”, they pay a subtle tribute to the strength of his will. There’s a slight irony here, with the spot created to coincide with the opening of an Olympic games that Pistorius won’t be attending (though he will be competing in the Paralympic Games, where he’s sure to continue demolishing the competition as he has been for years. He’s the Michael Phelps of Paralympic Track).

The ad isn’t anything particularly groundbreaking, but with subject matter like this you don’t really need it to be. Shot with his actual trophies and at the actual high school he attended in Pretoria, Nike and W+K were smart enough to know all they needed to do was tell the story simply and with truth, because the emotion inside it is so great and universal that it’s doesn’t need to be augmented by any advertiser or agency.

It’s almost so quick and easy as to brush past you. But I dare you to calm your mind, sit for a moment, watch this, and actually imagine what it would be like to be him. To have everyone tell you that your dreams are impossible. And then to prove them all wrong. And to have to do it every single day.

(Agency: Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. Director: Brent Harris. Production: Rabbit at Bonkers.)

Via Creativity Online

concepts + nike = sb lobster dunk low.

Nobody ever took over the world playing it safe. For proof as to why Nike is Nike, we need look no further than the freshly caught and released Nike SB Lobster Dunk Low.

In collab with Concepts and designed by Rob Heppler, these shoes are almost unspeakably awesome in their full crustacean glory: from the (surprisingly attractive) dappled shell lowers to the gingham insoles (very Barefoot Contessa…) to the little blue elastic claw-bands wrapped around the toes, I’m just blown away at how irreverently cool they’ve managed to make these.

It gets better. The first 50 buyers into the Concepts store in Cambridge got their hands on a limited edition box set:

I’m not sure I have words to describe how much I love the limited edition packaging. Besides coming in a wooden lobster-trap box, there are some Concepts tees, an additional set of butter-yellow laces, shell-crackers and that little metal do-hickey you use to pull the meat out of hard to reach lobster places, and a Wet Nap. That’s right – there’s a fucking WET NAP in there!

No big surprise that these puppies are totally sold out. The limited sets are already up on eBay for about $2000 US, and I found the shoes alone for about $400 US. That would buy a lot of lobster.

Via Kitsune Noir + Hypebeast

nike: “my better is better”.

Everyone (and by everyone, I mean ad-geeks) is waiting to see what will happen to Nike as a whole since the Nike Running account got awarded to THE agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Aside from causing some web confusion (some people think Wieden + Kennedy still has the whole Nike account, some think CP+B have the whole Nike account) I think the different agencies’ work will become clear soon enough.

Though the prevailing buzz seems to be that W+K should be sweating a little, their lately spot proves they’re not going anywhere without a fight. “My Better is Better” totally kicks the door down and gives us a conveniently-timed reminder of Nike’s epic campaigns of yore.

Sometimes I get a little annoyed when people talk more about the song in an ad than the ad as a whole, but this song is so totally sick that I don’t care. It’s by Saul Williams and it’s called List of Demands. It’s the shit.

nike trash talk.

Promoted as the brainchild of Nike star endorser and big time environmentalist Steve Nash, last month Nike released the Trash Talk – the first high-end running shoe made not just out of environmentally friendly first-run materials, but literally out of scraps that would otherwise have been tossed.

Check out the details on exactly what Nike is (and isn’t) doing to walk their trash talk, as well as read the various soap-boxing of environmentalists claiming to see right through this, at the must-read Treehugger.

nike air force 1… in australia.

I almost shit my pants at first because Nike, famously, doesn’t advertise the iconic Air Force 1. I think it’s an authentic way to keep the shoe real and build brand caché.

I’m not sure if the whole scheme isn’t going over to well down under or something, because @radical.media recently produced a new Aussie Air Force 1 spot, directed by Christopher Riggert. The spot is, in a word, fuckingawesome:

Via Fubiz

nike: no excuses.

It’s oh so easy to line up all those New Year’s resolutions on Dec. 27th, with egg-nog in one hand and paté knife in the other, readying yourself for the inevitable devouring of another cheeseball. Once all the late-night Toblerone wrappers have been discarded and you’re back in the office wondering where the holidays went… then it’s a whole other story.

It’s that very collision between the good intentions of your resolutions and the reality that mere days before you thought nothing of eating half a tin of shortbread…at midnight…with stuffing on the side, where Nike steps in.

Under it’s iconic and now permanently entrenched Just Do It umbrella (I’m pretty sure if you showed infants in Mongolia a swoosh their first words would be “just do it”), the No Excuses campaign is based on making you feel like shit for giving up so easily.

(Agency: Wieden + Kennedy Portland)

Starring US Paralympian Matt Scott, the spot is simple, honest, and to the point. There really are no excuses. Maybe not the most groundbreaking work Nike’s ever done, but the message is true and the emotion behind it is genuine. The campaign has corresponding outdoor as well. I think the billboard, though pleasingly minimalist, would be sort of dull if you hadn’t seen the TV ad. But maybe that’s because I’m a lazy mofo…